Next week is Finals Week—or Sweeps Week, as I like to call it—and for a
lot of people that means three things: studying, studying and studying!
Personally, however, I’ve never been hip to this whole studying tactic.
Instead, I always opt to come to class on the day of the final completely
unprepared and then—and only then—do I break out my patented secret: a panel
of four of the most renowned guessers who live inside my head. I read a
multiple-choice question and then the four of them interpret the tricky double
meanings each answer possesses, analyze the merit of each choice based solely on
wording and then, finally, compute the statistical probability of whether an
‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ ‘D’ or the tricky ‘E’ is most likely to be
the correct response based on previous guesses (“Sir, we’ve just answered
‘B’ twice in a row—there’s no way they’re hitting us up for a third
‘B’). For the first few questions, this method usually works fine. However,
by around the 6th or 7th question, a split decision almost always
arises—it’s either two vs. two or, in some rare cases, 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1.
These split decisions are usually followed by a ten-minute battle of internal
fisticuffs, after which many panelists are too injured to continue guessing. I
then must recruit some Spanish-speaking expert guessers, which always leads me
down the path to confusion, as I don’t speak Spanish, and neither do any of
the other panelists. They’ll say, “Did you say the answer is ‘C’ or ‘Si’?
And quit using complex verbs, Carlos. We can’t understand you.” Having
Spanish-speaking panelists is probably the reason approximately one third of my
write-in answers are written in Spanish. More importantly, it’s probably the
reason I usually do poorly on tests. I mean, how can I consult a guessing expert
who lives inside my head if he can’t speak my language? Give me a break. So,
basically, I’m either going to have to start studying like everybody else or
simply learn Spanish.

I won’t be sure if this post makes any sense or not until tomorrow, because
I haven’t gotten any sleep in the last 30 cubic hours. (Scholar’s Note: One
cubic hour equals time * the Residence Interval (RI) of floods in Arizona * the
% hypertextuality—which is almost always 100.) Fortunately, in only 218.7
cubic hours, I will be done with Sweeps Week. That’s a relief, because Sweeps
Week is awful waffle.

4-21-01

Somebody pulled the fire alarm Thursday night at about four in the morning,
and so everyone had to go outside and wait for the imaginary fire to be put out.
Nobody’s sure who pulled the alarm, but I highly suspect it was Jerry Seinfeld,
because who else could be capable of just fantastic wit? Pulling the fire alarm
when there is no actual fire is an absolutely brilliant social
commentary. I mean, think about it: Whether they wanted to sleep or not,
everybody had to go outside at 4am and wait around. That’s comedy, man.
Unless … wait a minute, pulling the fire alarm when there is no fire isn’t
funny at all. In fact, it’s kind of the trademark of an asshole. The irony is
that, if it turns out the Christians are right about the afterlife, the person
who pulled the fire alarm is going to burn in hell.

Speaking of religion, the film Hollow Man is really stupid. I say “speaking
of religion” because the characters kept making references to “playing
God.” He turned invisible. How the hell is that playing God? If
you’re cloning things, people could make an argument that you’re playing
God. If you’re tinkering with genetics in future children, alright, fine,
people could remark that you’re playing God there, too. But if you simply
become invisible to the naked eye, that’s not playing freakin’
God—that’s just turning invisible. Nobody thinks that any God created
existence by turning invisible. You just can’t make existences that way.

4-18-01

Looking for a fun way to increase your risk of dying every day by about
2,000%? I recommended Rollerblading. Personally, even though I’ve had my
Rollerblades for years, I’ve managed to almost die every single time I’ve
ever used them. The problem lies in their design: they’re shoes with wheels
on them. This makes it impossible to stay balanced or stop on command. You
are not allowed to dictate where you go with these things—you merely make
suggestions. Sometimes my Rollerblades don’t feel like stopping at my classes,
so I just kind of ride it out and see where they’re taking me. Usually it’s
to a busy intersection, or to Canada, or to a busy intersection in Canada. This
often leads to memorable adventures, but it rarely leads to me getting to class
on time.

Oh, sure, you might see people on in-line skates who look like they’re in
control, but it’s all a facade. These people are merely pretending to be
elegant, when in reality they are fearing for their lives. I know. I’ve been
there.

On another topic, there has been an incredible amount of ants running around
my dorm room lately. Since there’s not really anything to eat, all they are
able to consume are their dead friends. After they do that, they usually run
around some more and look for a place to die, whereupon other ants eats them.
Somehow, they’ve managed to survive all of this, and in fact they seem to be
multiplying. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re getting
really annoying. This morning, for example, I woke up early because one of the
ants had bit my goddamn leg. He bit my leg! Excuse me for trying to sleep
in my own freaking bed. What, did he think he would kill me? There’s no way a
little ant could have killed something that’s about eight hundred thousands
times bigger than he was. Man, ants are so stupid. It’s a miracle they’ve
survived as a species as long as they have. What’s they’re secret? They
never know where they’re going, they only eat the dead bodies of their family,
and they’re constantly trying to kill animals that are way bigger than they
are. And think about it: If you were the queen of an ant colony, you would send
out your smartest ants to scavenge for food. This means that the ants we see are
the most clever ants alive, and that somewhere down in that little anthill are
ants who don’t even know how to run around in a circle looking for dead
insects to eat. And how long have ants been around? Forever. Maybe this whole
“science” thing humans are working on isn’t the answer. Maybe we should
mindlessly run around and try to bite wild bears on their legs. It certainly
couldn’t hurt.

4-12-01

Due to circumstances beyond my control (laziness), I am now in a position
where I must write no less than six analytical essays over the course of these
last four weeks of school. Thankfully, for some of the essays due in his class,
my English professor helped everyone out with some pointers in an engaging piece
of email he sent. “These are all texts,” he wrote, “that have a distinct
hypertextuality about them: does this mirror how we read?” You see, sometimes
he forgets things, like when he forgot that “Hypertextuality” is not a word.
He’s from Canada, though—maybe that’s a word in Canada. All I know is that
I looked the word up in 20 different dictionaries and they all just shrugged
back at me, adding, “As far as we can tell, that’s just one of those words
retarded people say to sound like they’re talking about something
important.” I said, “Oh come on, you’re just being hypertextual.”

Here’s a quick recipe for insanity I developed: stay up all night reading a
book written by Jean Baudrillard (a name pronounced using about a third of the
actual letters) called America and then write an essay on it. Here is an
actual sentence from the text: “Akin to the nostalgia for living forms that
haunts geometry.” If you’re wondering, no, I didn’t take that sentence out
of context. It was written out of context. It doesn’t relate to
anything, and it is impossible to make sense out of, let alone write an essay
on.

So to combat this problem of having to read books that were written by
authors who randomly banged their heads on a keyboard, I have developed several
surefire tips for writing analytical papers:

--Randomly locate an obscure word in the dictionary that nobody has every
heard of. Next, stick the prefix “quasi” in front of it and the suffix
“ism” at the end of it and include it in your thesis. Make sure that the
resulting sentence doesn’t make any sense.

--Call lots of things paradoxes. Bonus: call the fact that something is a
paradox a paradox in and of itself.

--Use old-English words like “therefore” and “thus" until your
essay reads like an old Shakespearean play.

--Instead of using periods, commas or the letter ‘k’, use semicolons.
They make you sound smart; semicolons are fresh.

--Say that the book you read had a lot of “hypertextuality.”

--Start every single paragraph with the word “ultimately.”

Using only a few of these tips, here is an example of a sentence you could
make: “Ultimately, the quasi-calcitrationisms of Baudrillard’s America
lead to a paradoxical hypertextuality.” What does this sentence mean? Hell if
I know. The beauty lies in the fact that your professor wouldn’t know either,
but would pretend like he did in order to sound smart. No professor will ever
say, “Wait a minute, this sentence is just a bunch of meaningless literary
buzzwords randomly strung together,” because this is exactly how English
professors talk themselves. In this way, they’re very hypertextualized.

4-8-01

When they began making an all berry Cap’n Crunch, I was sure Jesus Christ
would intervene. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, all berries? Seriously, guys, don’t you
think you’re over doing it?” That many berries just seems unhealthy. They
don’t make an all-marshmallow Lucky Charms for a very good reason: You would
die after eating a single bowl. But if a bowl full of Cap’n Crunch’s berries
isn’t bad for you, why couldn’t they have done that ten years ago? Why did
they hold back on us? Was the world not ready for all berries until now?

I’m retarded, so I decided that it would be a good idea to spend five
minutes of my life visiting the Cap’n Crunch
website for some more information. However, upon going there, I discovered
that you have to register a Cap’n Crunch.com account to access the
“exclusive cool areas.” Why? According to their registration page, “For
security reasons.” They might have been kidding about that explanation, but I
couldn’t tell—these Cap’n Crunch.com people are pretty subtle. So after a
long internal debate, I decided that it wasn’t worth registering in order to
access the exclusive cool areas (including the questionably named “Fun
Zone”), so I instead went to their “Support” section, where I was shocked
to discover the answers to every question I have ever asked in my life. For
example, question #3 is: “After years of adventuring, why isn't the Cap'n an
Admiral yet?” Their answer:

"It is a little known fact that the Cap'n WAS an Admiral at one time.
After a tremendous outpouring from his fans, the Quaker Oats Company decided to
promote the Cap'n. But Admiral Crunch quickly became bored with his desk job at
Crunch Headquarters. And after a small mishap with the Crunch Berrie and Crunch
Biscuit machine (at the hands of two recently promoted new co-Cap'ns) he decided
that he was truly the best one suited for the role as the Cap'n. He soon
requested his old position again, and he went back to being the best Cap'n that
Crunch Headquarters has ever had. He is much happier now!"

I had no idea that the Cap’n had so much history behind him, but this
answer just raises more questions. What was this “small mishap” they refer
to? What is a Crunch Biscuit machine? Who were these two new co-Cap’ns? These
queries are all answered in the response to question #4: “Where did 'Oops! All
Berries' come from?”

"Despite popular belief, 'Oops! All Berries' did not come from an
incident at Crunch Headquarters with some mischievous kids. This flavor actually
stemmed out of the Capn's promotion to Admiral. When the Cap'n was promoted, the
Quaker Oats Company had to find new Capn's to fill the positions vacated by the
newly promoted Admiral Crunch. During training at Crunch Headquarters, two new
Capn's--Cap'n Scrinch and Cap'n Munch--were trying to learn how to man the
Crunch Berrie and Crunch Biscuit mixing machine that put the two flavors
together in the Crunch Berries boxes. While trying to impress Admiral Crunch,
they fought over the control handles, breaking them, and creating Cereal Boxes
with JUST Berries. Thankfully, the Admiral had his Art Department slap together
a box front for the new cereal, which is now enjoyed by millions."

I guess that answers my question about why they waited until recently for an
all berry Cap’n Crunch. Wait a minute, no it doesn’t, that was the stupidest
thing I’ve ever read. Can you believe somebody actually got paid to write that
down? “Hi, what do you do for a living?” “Well, I’m the guy who invents
Cap’n Crunch’s storied history. Remember the Soggies? That’s right—I
created them.”

I think I just figured out what I want to do for a living.

4-3-01

Is it possible to have a Monopoly-themed lunch? According to the West Circle
cafeterias, yes, it is. I don’t know how they did it either, because the board
game Monopoly is in no way affiliated with food. One of the cafeteria attendants
was even serving food behind a make-shift jail. It was kind of funny, but more
than that, it was really sad. That person gets paid next to minimum wage to
serve food through fake prison bars, and all because of the cafeteria’s sick
desire to confuse everyone.

What is with themed meals, anyway? “Welcome to Landon cafeteria! Today is
Spring Day!” Oh, Spring Day, eh? Is that why I’m paying over $1200 to eat at
a crappy cafeteria? For special table clothes? “Hey, welcome to Landon
cafeteria! Today is Construction Zone Day!” Construction Zone Day? What the
hell does that even mean? I don’t understand! How does that relate do
anything? If they insist on having themed meals, though, I have a suggestion:
Edible Food Day. If they really wanted, they could even throw in some wacky hats
to make it Edible Food and Wacky Hat Day. That way, everybody would win.

On another note, back when Tripod took Slacker Wannabes down, I emailed them
and asked why. Recently, long after I stopped caring, they sent me this message:

Hello Eric,

Your web page was removed for Remote Loading, the practice of storing files
in your member directory for access from other domains.

This practice is wasteful of our resources and inhibits the service levels
that Lycos members with actual homepages can receive. As a result, your account
was removed.

Remote Loading is specified as a violation in the Terms of Service that you
agreed upon at the time that you registered with Lycos:

i) Use of a Member Web Page as storage for remote loading, or as a door or
signpost to another home page.

I’m not a big fan of computers, so I had no idea what Remote Loading was
until they sent this. The funniest thing about them saying that I Remote Loaded
or whatever was that I clearly didn’t, as I don’t have any other non-Tripod
domains with which to access my member directory with. But, whatever, I don’t
really care anymore. You win, Tripod—I Remote Loaded, and you caught me.

My favorite part about their message is when the say, “This practice is
wasteful of our resources and inhibits the service levels that Lycos members
with actual homepages can receive,” which cleverly suggests that my site was
not an “actual homepage.” They’re like, “Hey, why don’t you get an
actual homepage? I’m sick of you goddamned kids and your fake homepages.” I
bet you there’s a part of their Terms of Service that’s like:

2b-17) A Tripod member shall herein not register a Tripod Member Directory
for use with a false homepage, or a homepage that is not otherwise real in all
capacities. False homepages are to be removed immediately and without
notification, as agreed upon in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In conclusion, Tripod is insane.

4-1-01

I’ve figured out the problem with most of my classes: my professors are all
complete idiots. Oh, I’m sure they’re nice people and everything, but
they’re just so stupid. I swear to God not one of them can figure out how to
operate the light switch panels. Every single time we watch a video in any of my
classes, it takes them at least ten minutes to figure out how to turn on enough
lights for us to take notes and stay awake, but not so much that the video
becomes difficult to see. They fumble around forever before calling their
semi-retarded TA’s over, who always eventually settle on the worst possible
combination, such as having the light nearest to the screen turned on and all of
the other lights turned off, so that we can’t see what’s going on or take
notes. And the microphone system? Forget about it. If they actually
manage to turn on their microphone on a given day, within minutes they’ll be
an ear-churning squeaking sound, and then the professor will start looking
around the room real quickly, as if to say, “Who’s doing that? What’s
going on?” Well I don’t know, maybe you’re speaking too close into the
mike for the 48th consecutive time in a goddamned row. I wouldn’t be mad with
all of this, but these are supposed to be smart people. I don’t understand
what’s wrong with them. How is it that they are teaching at the college level
when they can’t operate a VCR or focus a projector? And how come they can’t
learn how to do these things after 30 years of teaching? I’m sorry, but I
can’t learn anthropology from somebody who can’t operate any technology that
was created after 1973.

Incidentally, MSU lost their Final Four basketball game to Arizona, which I
think means that students who attend Arizona University are, on average, better
at playing basketball than people who attend Michigan State. The good news is
that if Duke ends up beating Arizona, I’ll receive no less than $10 in MadCash
thanks to a Pepsi bottle cap promotion. I’m not sure what MadCash is, or what
one can purchase with it, but I’m pretty sure that this would be the greatest
thing I have ever won.